


The Life That You Know

by Niobium



Category: Tron (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-08
Updated: 2013-07-08
Packaged: 2017-12-18 03:47:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/875272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Niobium/pseuds/Niobium
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kevin and Lorie discuss the paths their real lives took, versus the lives they could have known.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Life That You Know

**Author's Note:**

> Entry for the prompt, 'It's because I loved you and you didn’t love back.' on the tron_legacy comm from a couple years ago.
> 
> Since Tron 2.0 seems to be off the canon (thank goodness), I've been in favor of Alan and Lorie having a daughter rather than a son. A touch AU, in that respect. (Sequel authors, are you listening?)

***

"Eight pounds five ounces. Nineteen inches. It's a girl." Alan's voice was giddy and terrified over the scratchy phone as he related the news to Kevin.

Kevin dropped a sleepy Sam off with his parents and raced for the hospital at top speed. The glittering city spread around him and he tore through it on his Ducati, fixated on his destination. 

He was sure he made the trip in record time, but Alan looked less euphoric and more wrung out when Kevin arrived at the OB ward. He steered the newly minted father to an uncomfortable row of chairs that was sure to produce a stiff neck, and as he'd expected, Alan's eyes shut and he laid his head back as soon as the seats were under him. He murmured something about asking Lorie if she needed anything, and Kevin assured him he would before heading for the room. 

Here he paused on the threshold, peering in from a desire to not intrude, but Lorie was on the alert. She glanced up when she heard him, calling, "You can come in." Kevin held out his offering of delicate paper flowers with pride as he entered, and Lorie laughed her thanks, nodding at the table next to her. "I should've guessed," she said. Her not-very-little girl was quiet for the moment. 

"It's tradition by now, right?" Kevin settled himself into the chair by Lorie's side. "How're you holding up?" 

The smile became a shrug and a sigh. "I don't know how anyone does this three and four times." She looked at the door. "Is Alan asleep yet?" 

"Passed out," Kevin confirmed. "Probably won't see him for at least two hours." 

That news put her at ease, and her eyes drifted to the baby girl in her arms. "How's Sam?" 

"He's doing okay. I left him with mom and dad. Didn't think he'd really get the whole point of a 3A.M. visit to his new god-sister." 

"Probably not. He can see her in a couple of weeks." 'When we're getting more than an hour of sleep', her eyes said. Kevin grinned. 

They sat in quiet for some time, Lorie watching her daughter doze and Kevin watching them both and seeing a different mother and child. A terrible anguish gripped his throat, and he cleared it, glancing away to hide the reaction. He saw Lorie look at him out of the corner of his eye, and ran a hand through his hair. He'd never missed his wife more than right then. 

She looked like she wanted to say something, anything. She settled on, "I imagine Sam was a handful." 

"You have *no* idea," Kevin said, his voice thick with emotion. He cleared it again. "I thought he'd *never* sleep. Jordan took it like a champ, though; she always said she was born to raise kids." 

"That's definitely *not* me," Lorie muttered. 

"Of course it is," he insisted. "Hell, you took great care of me, and you take amazing care of Alan." 

"That's not the same as taking care of a baby." Kevin raised his eyebrows, and she suppressed only some of her laugh. "Okay, maybe it is a little." 

"I was training you for this," he continued, and his mind turned down a strange, side alley it never had before. He was thinking so fast that the question was out before he could stop it. "Why *did* we break up, anyways?" he asked, eyes on the baby in particular. 

Lorie looked up from her daughter. She seemed to Flynn to be past shock and exasperation at this point; with the exhaustion of childbirth and impending motherhood on her doorstep, maybe she had no room for other concerns. "I loved you, Kevin. You just never loved me back." 

He tried to cover his initial reaction to that ("I did so!") with a laugh, hoping that would make something less defensive come out. "I--Lorie, you know that's not true..." His voice failed as she shook her head, eyes patient and fond. 

"You were a perfectly decent guy, Kevin, but you weren't in love with me. You were in love with the idea of us. Two brilliant technologists, working to better the world for humanity." He was lured by the memories her words conjured even now, his visions of them as informational pioneers foremost among them. 

"That's what we were," he said, smiling to himself. Her sad sigh brought him back to the present with crashing finality. 

"No, Kevin. That's what you wanted us to be." Lorie looked down at her daughter. "I wanted us to be a family." 

This was why, then. Alan loved her for the sake of her, and for the sake of forming a connection with someone. Kevin had simply wanted her, and mistaken it for love. 

Echoing his thoughts in that uncanny way she had, Lorie commented, "He would have married me if I was a GED-carrying bartender from Oakland, Kevin." Her eyes found him, and a wry smile touched her lips. "You felt that way about someone else." 

Kevin swallowed. Jordan had, in fact, only used technology as a means to an ends. Computers and software had helped her greatly as an architect, but they'd never been her life. Despite that, Kevin hadn't been bothered by their differences; if anything, that had been the beauty of their marriage. Somehow that had happened with her and not Lorie, and now Jordan was gone and Lorie was here with a daughter in her arms. 

The world was such a terrible and beautiful place. 

"We're going to name her Moira," Lori said. Kevin blinked back to reality to find her smiling shyly at him. "Mind if her middle name is Jordan?" 

Moira Jordan Bradley. She would have liked that name, Kevin thought. 

What he said was, "Not at all. It's beautiful."


End file.
